Thousands Join Srebrenica Anniversary Commemorations

Some 50,000 people gathered on Thursday to mark the 18th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacres as 409 victims of the Srebrenica genocide were laid to rest at the nearby the memorial centre in Potocari.

According to official data, among the victims whose remains were buried at Potocari were 44 boys between the ages of 14 and 18 and three females, one of whom was a baby.

Mourners came from as far away as Croatia and Serbia to attend the commemoration, some of them marching on foot, some riding bicycles and others arriving with a motorbike convoy.

The president of the commemorative board, Camil Durakovic, said that this was his most holy and saddest day.

“All of you here,  I ask you not to forget us tomorrow,” Durakovic said.

“I plead that you to use your influence and work to make Srebrenica a place of peace and tolerance, for this to be a firm message so this will never happen again, as this is what the families of the victims deserve,” he said.

The US ambassador to Sarajevo Patrick Moon also paid his respects at the memorial centre and promised that his country would always “reject messages which deny genocide and the multi-ethnic character of Bosnia and Herzegovina”.

“Criminal prosecutions are important to find those responsible for the genocide. The trials of [wartime Bosnian Serb political and military leaders] Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic are a part of this process. All those who abide by a higher moral code must accept that genocide happened in July 1995 and that those responsible must be brought to justice,” said Moon.

 Zumra Sehomerovic, from the victims’ association Mothers of Srebrenica and Zepa, whose husband was killed during the 1995 massacres, said she was because the day reminded her of what happened 18 years ago, when she was also in Potocari.

“I see a river of people and this reminds me of all that happened in July 1995. This is horrible, painful… I cannot explain to people my pain and sorrow, when I see the horror of this suffering, all these graves,” said Sehomerovic.

Bakir Izetbegovic, the Bosniak member of the country’s tripartite presidency, said that no normal human being could comprehend the hatred which led to the killings of thousands just because they were Muslims.

“Srebrenica will always be a dark stain on the palm of the international community, as the killings happened in a so-called protected area,” said Izetbegovic.

Eighteen years ago, military and police forces from Bosnia’s Serb-led entity Republika Srpska attacked the UN-protected ‘safe area’ of Srebrenica, and subsequently killed around 7,000 men and boys and forcibly expelled around 30,000 women, children and elderly people.

The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, ICTY, has defined the crimes in Srebrenica as genocide in several of its verdicts. The ICTY and the Bosnian state court have so far handed down prison sentences totalling more than 500 years for war crimes in Srebrenica.

There are several ongoing trials over the genocide, including the prosecutions of Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic.